An industry standard for capacitive touch key sensing electronics is the Microchip Technology Inc., Charge Time Measurement Unit (CTMU) incorporated into various Microcontrollers manufactured by Microchip Technology Inc. See “Microchip CTMU for Capacitive Touch Applications, Microchip application note AN1250 (2009), hereby incorporated by reference herein for all purposes. The capacitive touch keys are used to detect the presence of a finger or other object that increases the capacitance of the touch key when brought in close proximity thereto, e.g., touching the key with the finger or object. The CTMU requires a constant current source, uses power and takes up valuable integrated circuit chip real estate.
The CTMU senses a change in capacitance of a touch key by charging the effective capacitance with a constant current source and then measuring the voltage thereon, after a certain time period. A larger capacitance being charged during the certain time period results in a lower voltage thereon then a smaller capacitance being charged under the same constant current charging and the certain time period. The CTMU samples the respective voltages on each one of the capacitive touch keys in the control matrix and when a lower voltage is detected then what would normally be on an untouched key, the CTMU and associated software detect the actuation of that key.
However, many factors influence the capacitance of the touch key when untouched and/or touched such as moisture, e.g., humidity or water, on the touch key. When only certain ones of the touch key matrix have moisture on them, the capacitances thereof my be different enough to cause false sensing by the CTMU of those keys having higher capacitance induced by the moisture.
In many applications for control and display, LEDs associated with each of the capacitive touch keys are also desirable. However, the LEDs must be driven and thereby require additional connections besides those required for the touch keys. It is possible to multiplex sensing and drive operations and thereby use common connections for the LEDs and touch key circuits, but the LED portion tends to degrade the operation of the touch key when both are coupled together.
Interfacing a capacitive key matrix with an integrated circuit microcontroller typically requires a plurality of analog inputs on the microcontroller. This limits the number of capacitive keys that may be detected when touched.